


Ambience

by happydaygirl



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: One Shot, Puzzles, Sleep, first series, pre slash?, sleep problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26265901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happydaygirl/pseuds/happydaygirl
Summary: Set in early series 1- Lister has been out of stasis for two days and both he and Rimmer are already struggling. Rimmer finds he’s unable to sleep without the steady noise of the ship around him...can Lister help?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Ambience

It was 2.30 in the morning, and Lister still hadn’t gone to bed yet. He took another swing of lager as he pushed another piece of puzzle into place, excitement dawning as he gradually worked the image out.

He looked out the window, at the abject blackness outside. He felt a pang of something he couldn’t explain that hit him so hard in the gut and gave him such a horrible icy chill down his body that he psychically had to shake his head, sucking in a deep breath, and take another gulp of the now warm lager in his hand to calm himself down.

He’d been out of stasis for the grand total of two days, and he was still getting used to it. The silence. The boredom. The loneliness.

He looked round as Rimmer stirred in his bunk- the hologram was curled into his blankets, but Lister could see from the way he held his legs stiff that sleep was evading him too.

‘Can’t sleep?’ He asked, his voice reverberating around their sleeping quarters. He watched as Rimmer tensed even more at his words, before he turned round and peered around at him.

‘Well I was asleep, before I was rudely awoken by el fog horn…’ he said, sitting up and running his hands through his curly hair.

‘Give over Rimmer, you weren’t asleep, I could tell!’ Lister said, turning around in his chair and looking across at his bunk mate .

‘Oh really?’ Rimmer scoffed, ‘how?’

‘Even you don’t sleep in the foetal position- you normally starfish, and you weren’t snoring. Dead giveaway.’

‘Lister, I find it a tad creepy you know my sleeping positions to be honest…’ Rimmer said, eyeing the other man up suspiciously.

‘So, why can’t you sleep?’

‘Why can’t you?’ Rimmer shot back.

‘Well you know, doing my jigsaw…’ Lister mumbled, motioning the unfinished puzzle on the table. He didn’t feel like telling the hologram about the nightmares that made him not want to sleep.

‘Listie you’ve been doing that same jigsaw for two whole days now!’

‘It’s got loads of pieces, Rimmer!’

‘Oh really?’ Rimmer scoffed, shaking his head. ‘How many? Four?’

‘No, five hundred….’

‘Five hundred?!’ Rimmer’s voice went up a notch. ‘You’ll be at it till the day you pop your clogs, millado!’

‘No, I’m nearly done, actually.’ Lister replied, shaking his head. ‘So, are you gonna tell me why you can’t sleep or what?’

‘Or what.’ Came his instant answer. Seconds later, however, Lister turned around again as Rimmer let out a sigh and laid back down, looking up at the bunk above him.

‘It’s just too damn quiet to sleep.’

‘Eh?’

‘There’s just no ambience anymore. No thudding of footsteps out in the corridor, no low rumble of voices…Holly’s turned off some internal wiring so there’s no gurgling of pipes or anything like that on this floor anymore…’ Rimmer sighed again, shaking his head. ‘I need noise to sleep.’

‘Rimmer, you’re weirder than I give you credit for!’

‘You may laugh Lister, but you’re not the only one that needs to keep sane, you know!’

Lister sighed and sat back, thinking. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ He eventually asked, totally out of ideas.

Rimmer looked round at him, mouth creased tightly. ‘Well- in my locker I’ve got a white noise machine.’

‘Since when?’ Lister asked, frowning. ‘You’ve never used it before.’

‘I only ever used it when you weren’t here, when you pulled all nighters with Petersen and the others.’ Rimmer explained, shrugging.

‘Why?’ Lister said, standing up. ‘Cos you needed me around to make noise so you could sleep?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself Lister, I used it as a study aid when I finally had some piece and quiet!’ Rimmer replied disparagingly, glad it was too dark for Lister to see his cheeks, which he knew was probably a fetching shade of pink about now.

‘Okay, okay…’ Lister said as he walked over to the locker and pulled out the white noise machine. ‘There’s all sorts of settings on this, you know…rainstorm, heartbeat, rainforest..’

‘I usually use the thunderstorm setting…’ Rimmer said, watching as Lister put it on the table and switched it on. ‘Reminds me of home.’

‘Did it rain a lot there, then?’

‘A lot? Instead of monsoon warnings we had sunshine warnings, it was so infrequent!’

‘Here you go then…’ Lister said, pushing the button shaped like a cloud. The room was instantly filled with the sound of a rainstorm.

He jumped up onto his bunk as Rimmer relaxed back into his own, eyes closed and a calm expression filling his features. ‘Much better,’ he breathed, before shouting ‘off!’ and plunging the room into darkness.

Lister frowned into the blackness- he didn’t know how much sleep he would get with a great storm raging, but if it made Rimmer happy, then it made him happy.

He would get to the rest of that puzzle in the morning….

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my little ficlet 😊 
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


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